


Paraphrasing

by loveleee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Almost Kiss, F/M, First Kiss, Libraries, Snowed In, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, just lots of tension ok?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 03:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16009301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: “Oh, shit. Look.” Jughead points to the windows behind the checkout desk, which offer a much clearer view of the outside – or would, anyway, if said view wasn’t obstructed by the heaviest snowfall Betty’s ever seen in her life.A vague memory makes its way to the fore of Betty’s thoughts: the librarian, just a few hours ago, on her way out, telling them to drive carefully.In the snowstorm, she now realizes. At the time she’d been too busy snickering at a cat meme Jughead had sent her to pay attention to the warning.Jughead hops behind the front desk and presses his forehead to the window. “Yup. That’s a least two feet of snow out there.” He turns to look at her. “I think we’re snowed in.”





	Paraphrasing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stillscape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/gifts).



“God, I’m starving.”

Betty snorts as she types out the end of a citation, hitting the Enter button with a flourish. A lot of things about her hometown have changed in the three years since she’d left for college – a luxury condo development rising on the Southside, multiple coffee shops opening up on the same two-block stretch that constituted Riverdale’s “downtown”, and her parents’ rocky marriage finally crumbling into a bitter divorce, just to name a few.

But in Betty Cooper’s ever-shifting world, there are three guarantees: death, taxes, and Jughead Jones’ insatiable appetite.

“It’s only nine.” She stretches her arms over her head, wincing as she feels a soft _pop_ somewhere in her shoulder. “We could go to Pop’s.”

Jughead grins, the glow of his laptop screen in the dimly lit library tinting his face an unsettling shade of blue. “I like the way you think, Cooper.”

It’s barely a joke, let alone an actual compliment, but it brings a rush of heat to Betty’s face nonetheless. She ducks her head and rests her cheek on one hand, pretending to focus on her screen. _Calm down. It’s just Jughead._

Truthfully, though, he hasn’t been _just_ Jughead for months now.

It used to be easier, being around him. During high school Betty had sensed the occasional faint, fleeting glimmer of attraction between the two of them, but it was never enough to break through the walls of solitude Jughead had carefully constructed around himself, nor the thick cloud of childhood nostalgia that had kept her pining after Archie for so many years.

Then college had taken them in different directions: Betty south to the University of Maryland, Jughead north to SUNY Binghamton. They saw each other on breaks, almost always with Archie in tow, their bright, jocular, redheaded friend still the strongest common thread that linked them.

This past summer, though, something had felt _different_ when her fellow summer intern walked through the doors of the Riverdale Public Library, and revealed himself to be none other than Jughead Jones. From the very first day there was a new energy between them she hadn’t felt before – a lively, crackling spark. A shared interest, too, in library sciences, which Betty felt silly not to have realized sooner, given Jughead was the only other kid in English class who could be counted on to do their assigned readings every week.

They’d worked together eight hours a day, five days a week, June, July, August. They’d spent countless evenings in a booth at Pop’s, giggling about weird library patrons and debating whether winter in upstate New York or summer in D.C. was worse. They’d lingered in the parking lot night after night, neither wanting to return to the places that felt less and less like home with every passing year.

Nothing had come of their newfound connection by the end of summer – nothing physical, anyway. But when Betty had returned to campus for the fall semester of her senior year, she had found herself unable to shake the thought of her childhood friend. The thought of what it might be like if he were to become _more_ than that.

And now? Now it’s winter break – three days before Christmas – and she’s hung out with him nearly every day since arriving back in Riverdale. _Still_ nothing has happened, and she doesn’t know if it’s because she’d simply misread Jughead’s interest in books as interest in _her_ , or because both of them are equally paralyzed by the thought of making a move.

(She thinks it’s the latter. She _hopes_ it’s the latter. And yet the possibility of the former feeds into her uncertainty, like a snake eating its own tail.)

“Ready?” Jughead asks her once they’ve gathered their things. “I’ll get the lights.” Though the library officially closed at six on weekdays, the goodwill that Betty and Jughead had built up with their former intern supervisor meant she was letting them stay after hours to work on their senior theses in peace and quiet, so long as they locked everything up before they left.

Betty waits for him by the front door. When he reaches her side, she pushes the door handle, and nearly knocks her forehead right into the frosted glass window panel – because it doesn’t budge an inch.

“That’s weird,” she murmurs, pushing at the bar a few more times. “Did she lock it from the outside, or something?”

“Oh, shit. Look.” Jughead points to the windows behind the checkout desk, which offer a much clearer view of the outside – or _would_ , anyway, if said view wasn’t obstructed by the heaviest snowfall Betty’s ever seen in her life.

A vague memory makes its way to the fore of Betty’s thoughts: the librarian, just a few hours ago, on her way out, telling them to drive carefully. _In the snowstorm_ , she now realizes. At the time she’d been too busy snickering at a cat meme Jughead had sent her to pay attention to the warning.

Jughead hops behind the front desk and presses his forehead to the window. “Yup. That’s a least two feet of snow out there.” He turns to look at her. “I think we’re snowed in.”

“Oh my god.” Betty pulls her phone out of her purse, her heart sinking as she takes in the scroll of text and voicemail notifications – all of them from her mother. “Shit. I had my ringer on silent. My mom’s going to _kill_ me.”

His eyes light up. “You had your phone on silent in an _empty library_? That is the most Betty Cooper thing I’ve ever heard.”

She holds up a finger to shush him, her phone pressed against her ear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ten minutes later Betty hangs up, mostly confident that she’s persuaded her mother there’s no need to call in the state troopers to dig them out of the library. She finds Jughead seated at one of the little round tables in the breakroom, an entire wall of cabinets flung open behind him, a small pile of shiny, plastic-wrapped granola bars before him.

“There’s nothing but granola bars in here,” he groans.

Betty slips into the chair beside his. “You don’t like _granola bars_?”

“I don’t _not like_ them.” Jughead bites into one with gusto, as if to prove his point. “I just don’t see why you’d choose to eat one when you could eat basically anything else.”

“Sorry.” Betty scrunches up her nose in sympathy. “I guess I got you all hyped up for a burger and fries.”

“S’okay,” Jughead says, finishing off the granola bar with a second bite. “I wonder if that couch pulls out into a sleeper.”

She follows his gaze towards the lumpy gray sofa in question. “I doubt it.” The cushions do look deep enough to accommodate two people, though, _if_ said people were snuggled up pretty close.

She shuts the thought down before it can go any further, crossing her legs beneath the table. They’ll deal with that when the time comes.

“I don’t think the library was furnished with overnight guests in mind.”

Jughead shrugs. “Even so. It’s probably warmer in here than it is in my dad’s trailer.”

Betty isn’t sure what to say to that, so after a moment’s hesitation, she reaches over and squeezes his hand. Before she can pull away, he flips his hand over so their palms meet, and laces their fingers together.

Her pulse flutters like a hummingbird’s.

“Better company, too,” he adds, and then pulls away, reaching for another granola bar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once they’ve made a dent in Granola Mountain, as Jughead has decided to call it, they wander back out into the stacks.

“Isn’t there a kids’ book like this?” he wonders aloud, stopping to look at display of children’s mystery novels. “Where they get stuck in a library, or something?”

“Maybe…From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?” Betty drums her fingers along the shelf. “But they’re in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in that one. And it’s on purpose.”

“So not at all like this, then,” he says with a smile.

“Not really.” Betty gasps, a title catching her eye. “Oh, I _loved_ Harriet the Spy.” She pulls the book out, turning it over in her hands reverently.

“Remind me what that’s about?”

“This girl wants to be a writer and so she keeps a journal of observations about all her friends and classmates. Only she loses the journal and they all read it and get really mad at her.” Betty shrugs. “I don’t really remember the details, but I swear it’s better than it sounds.”

“No, yeah, I remember now.” Jughead tugs the book gently out of her grasp. “This book is great. I think it’s what inspired me to start writing about all of _my_ friends and classmates.”

Betty raises an eyebrow. “Guess you didn’t learn Harriet’s lesson.”

“Sure I did.” Jughead tips the book in her direction. “Don’t leave your personal shit lying around.”

She laughs. “All your friends and classmates, huh?” Before she can stop herself, she asks, “Did you write about me?”

The small smile on his face is almost…private, like he’s recalling a fond memory that only he possesses. It makes her stomach feel funny. “I did.”

“What did you write?”

He pauses, turning back to the shelf. “She was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.” At her silence, he glances at her, almost shy. “No, that’s Raymond Chandler. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote about you. Probably something deeply embarrassing.”

Betty lets out a long breath. “Oh.”

Jughead slots the book into an empty space on the shelf in front of him, the movement enough to break the fragile spell that’s settled over them so quickly. She tut-tuts, pulling it out to return it to its rightful place.

Her next question is _why?_ , but before she can ask it, he says, “Ask me what I’d write about you now.”

When she turns back to look at him, he’s already watching her with a soft, strange expression she can’t quite place. Her arms prickle with goosebumps. “Okay…what would you write now?”

“He tried not to look at her long, as if she were the sun.” Jughead takes a step closer, his words belied by the steadiness of his gaze. Betty feels pinned by it; she presses her palms against the ridge of the bookshelf behind her, grounding herself. “Yet he saw her, like the sun, without even looking.”

Her mouth has gone dry. “That’s beautiful.”

Jughead’s lips curve up into a half-smile. “Well, I stole that one too. Tolstoy. I’m paraphrasing.”

Betty swallows. He’s so close now she can almost feel the heat of him through her sweater. “Is that really how you think of me?”

“Betty,” he says, “it’s how I’ve always thought of you,” and then he’s leaning down and she’s tilting her chin up and closing her eyes, his fingers graze the curve of her cheek and this is it, this is _finally_ it –

A loud beeping sound emits from both of their pockets. Betty’s eyes fly open as they jump in unison.

Jughead pulls out his phone first, and laughs, running a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ. It’s just one of those emergency weather alerts.”

She thumbs open her own screen, and confirms: _EMERGENCY ALERT FROM THE CITY OF RIVERDALE: Heavy snowfall expected to exceed 36 inches overnight. Take shelter. Do not drive unless in an emergency._

Betty shakes her head. “Thanks, city of Riverdale. That would have been helpful…three hours ago?”

Jughead shoves his phone back into his pocket, and she does the same. He leans against the bookshelf, a little more distance between them than there was a moment ago. His posture suggests someone totally at ease, but the bright red tips of his ears suggest something else entirely.

“So, um…”

She’s not fumbling through this all over again. Betty steps forward, throws her arms around his neck, and kisses him.

He kisses back with enthusiasm, one hand coming to rest on her hip, the other sliding around to the small of her back. He presses her back into the stacks, and there they stay for at least five minutes, or maybe fifteen, thirty even – there’s really no way she could possibly know.

When they do take a break for some air, Betty leaves her arms looped around his neck, her eyes shut. She smiles, and giggles softly to herself.

Jughead’s still so close she can feel his warm breath against her cheek when he asks, “What? What are you thinking about?”

Her smile grows broader. “Just…thinking what I’d write about _you_.”

“Ah.” She can tell he’s pleased by the answer.

She opens her eyes. “We’re in the perfect place for it. There are _so many_ books here for me to plagiarize from.”

Jughead’s jaw drops open. “Hey, that’s not –”

But she doesn’t let him finish, interrupting his protests with another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> \- many thanks to the wonderful stillscape for prompting me the tropes: Stranded Due to Inclement Weather + Almost Kiss! since she correctly pointed out that my last fic failed to include a first kiss in it, I threw that in here too :D
> 
> \- I'm pretty sure it's not even _possible_ for 2+ feet of snow to accumulate in like, three hours, as I've implied here, but I'm equally sure no one reading this will care
> 
> \- I confess, I have never read _Farewell, My Lovely_ by Raymond Chandler, nor _Anna Karenina_ by Leo Tolstoy, which are the works Jughead is stealing / quoting his words of love from. I found the quotes from a [reddit thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/4r9ut2/what_is_your_favorite_description_of_female/) about favorite descriptions of female beauty in literature. so there is a very real possibility I am missing some context here that makes these quotes not as romantic as they seem. on the other hand, that's totally Riverdale's MO, too! ( _Beloved_ , anyone?) Anyway, I should proooobably get around to reading those for real.
> 
> \- I _have_ read the children's books referenced here, of course, many years ago. Classics!
> 
> \- I'm deeply grateful to anyone who takes a moment to leave a comment - please do, if you're so inclined! <3


End file.
